Warner Bros. Wants Leonardo DiCaprio For That Joker Origin Movie

What is happening? It’s a question we‘ve all been asking ourselves or shouting to the heavens with fists raised in recent months, but today brings a more specific application of that all-purpose cry for sense in a senseless world. When the news broke last week that Warner Bros. wanted to pursue a Joker origin story while concurrently developing a Joker-featuring Suicide Squadsequel and a deranged Joker/Harley Quinn love story, the Internet collectively demanded to know what was happening. And when it came out that none other than Martin Scorsese would be producing the Joker origin film, one “What is happening?” more.

Today brings the most “What is happening?” news of all, however, with the notice that Warner Bros. wants Oscar-winner and Very Serious Actor Leonardo DiCaprio to step in and portray the Joker in the origin movie. The Hollywood Reporterbroke down the studio’s tenuous game plan to use Scorsese‘s involvement as a way to the widely-loved movie star who’s remained far removed from the world of superheroes thus far. The THR item notes that the likelihood of this actually coming to pass is slim to none — Leo’s got elephants to save, or something! (Full disclosure: I have not seen the latest DiCaprio-produced nature documentary.)

But on the one-percent chance Warner Bros. can somehow make this happen, that would be pretty bananas. Personally, I see it as a sort of branding equivalent of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object: Warner Bros. is clearly dead-set on running the Joker property into the ground, and yet with DiCaprio, they may have found a Robert Downey Jr.-caliber star who is, in this role at least, flop-proof. Could cineplexes survive?